Residents of Manchester have been benefiting from a series of malaria control programmes being conducted in the parish since Monday, January 8.
The programmes, organized by the Manchester Health Department in collaboration with the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), consist of larvicidal and fogging activities, as well as community meetings, aimed at sensitizing citizens on measures to take to protect themselves and their communities.
Acting Chief Public Health Inspector for Manchester, Ira Farquharson, told JIS News that the control programmes were planned to deal with potential breeding places for the female anopheles mosquito.
“Our malaria control programmes are specifically dealing with the potential breeding places, where we search for the anopheles mosquito and other species [and] . we destroy all breeding places,” he noted. “We also have an adulticidal exercise, where we do fogging in the various communities. We pay special attention to complaints received for nuisance mosquitoes and we deal with these complaints on a prompt basis,” Mr. Farquharson added.
He pointed out that the education campaign has been taken to the communities of Cross Keys, Evergreen and Mandeville, and would continue on January 22 in Spaldings; in Porus on January 24 and in Oxford on January 29.
A resident of Mandeville, Rohan Wilson, who attended one of the outreach meetings yesterday (January 18), said it was very informative. “It explains to people what the real symptoms of malaria are and how they can prevent it,” he said. Clifford Hines, a student of Garlogie Primary and Junior High School, was enthused with the video presentation at the meeting. “I learnt that they are spraying the water where the mosquitoes breed . that we must wear long sweaters and pants, socks and slippers, and before the night comes down, you must close your windows and your doors,” he said.
The malaria control meetings will continue until the first week in February.